Vanuatu Daily News Digest | 18 November 2015

Daily Post reports today Prime Minister Kilman will participate with a 44 member delegation to COP21, the international climate change conference beginning in just over a week in Paris. It is therefore difficult to see how the PM could actively participate in any joint Government / Opposition attempt to fulfill the requirements of the Head of State for a solution to the present political crisis, soon becoming constitutional. President Baldwin Lonsdale has given the two sides until Sunday to reach a decision. The Head of State needs must then call a second ordinary sitting of Parliament as required by the Constitution.

Daily Post today also reports the Vanuatu Christian Council (VCC) maintaining its pro-nationalist stand in an interview with VCC Chairman Bishop James Ligo. The VCC has previously assisted the parties which were associated with Vanuatu’s Independence when it has had evidence of governments failing to follow the ideals of Independence. The VCC will continue to monitor the performance of the present and future governments, Bishop Ligo asserts.

Defence counsel Felix Laumae representing some of the gaoled MPs was dismissed by the Chief Justice on Monday from the Appeal Court for failing to make a submission in the required time. Daily Post reports today Laumae failing to apply to assist counsel Colin Leo and behaving unprofessionally.

Radio Vanuatu News and Daily Post have covered in detail a Vanuatu kava quality control plan to support the clearance by European health authorities of the indigenous local product. Standards which can be approved by FAO and WHO codex alimentarius are to be sought.

My staffs’ family have no water in Tanna, I can bore holes/wells for them but cannot carry the cost myself, how can 44 people go to Paris when it is not only a security issue, but we do not contribute to climate change destruction, we only bear the brunt of it, so what do we do? we move Erakor Village to the peninsula, we move Eratap village to higher ground, thats it, we know what to do already. We cannot stop the rest of the worlds actions affecting our climate, so we work it out, build sea walls or whatever, but we cannot stop it. Use the money to stop my friends families dying, you read this, in this world we are letting people die, and we can stop this.